Friday Thoughts

So I just went back to the repair shop and my phone is still under repair. I have not received assurance that it will be fixed and I can recover my old photos, but I'm thinking positive. I mean, those beach photos... I want them so badly. :-/

Things I learned or realised from my latest trip with my dolls:

1. It's really a good idea to have a catch-all container for my doll accessories and clothes so that I don't have to lose anything. It's quite challenging to be organised during the trip because there are lots of small items I could possibly lose in the process of dressing up my dolls, so a big ziplock bag served its purpose well. When in a hurry, I could just dump all my stuff in the bag and not worry.
2. Nothing beats daylight. The look of the natural light is soft (which of course, depends on the time of day you shoot) and the shadows cast on the dolls give the final photos some kind of personality. Plus you don't have to lug around huge lighting equipment. Daylight helps me so much in mobile photography because it's so convenient.
3. Again, knowing and getting inspired by your subject well helps the photos look so much better. I have Asha the Made To Move doll, yet I was only able to shoot a couple of photos with her because I wasn't thinking a lot about her potential as a good poser. I also wasn't inspired to shoot her at the time. I guess it's because Asha is fairly new to my collection, so I haven't warmed up to her.

Anyway, it's taking a while for me to get back to my routine in real life because my things are a mess. My doll clothes are shoved in shoe boxes without order, even my doll accessories have scattered in those boxes. My room looks so dumpy, too. Sigh. I'll clean up soon.

Also I have new (second-hand) dolls I haven't blogged about: 

• A wobbly Hanna Montana head transplanted onto a Barbie basic belly button body. I had to transplant her head again to a different belly button body. (P70)
• a Nikki Swappin Styles Artsy doll (P180)

And there would be two incoming dolls: 

• A twist-and-turn doll with an old Steffie or PJ face sculpt. Not sure which, but yay I love this face (P150)
• A Christie Fountain Mermaid Barbie doll. Her skin + pink hair = awesome. (P150) 

Ugh, well I told myself I should stop collecting Barbies, but look at me now. I'm not really collecting blonde Barbie, but the other girls, so yeah. Heh. I haven't had luck finding dolls I like at thrift stores lately, so online sellers to the rescue...

I have started transporting some of my dolls to my new place. I took a photo of the first batch of the dolls on the shelf over there (my La Dee Das, Novi Stars, Sindy, among others), but my phone is dead, remember. :-/ I'll be transporting more soon, those dolls that I think do not need a lot of work. Like, I'm not so invested yet in dressing up my Mary-Kate Olsen doll to a T. She looks all right wearing an Elly-chan dress at the moment. Besides I have lot more work to do on my nude and broken dolls. She's going to be fine.

I've been watching a lot of Project Runway episodes, even those that I haven't seen, Season 5 onwards, These episodes are inspiring me to create clothes for my dolls even more. 

I got a Shopkins Season 5 backpack blind bag because the small backpacks are perfect for Lottie. I bought them using my bank rewards points, so I didn't have to shell out any money at the cashier. The backpacks are the perfect size for Lottie, but the straps are just sculpted on the back of the bags so Lottie couldn't wear them at all. I'll modify the backpacks so that Lottie could use them, like, hot glue some ribbons on it as straps. These backpacks would suffice while my quest for an affordable miniature randoseru bag is still on, haha. I mean, look at this, or these:

Adorable.